An Accident Waiting to Happen
by Milli Moi
Summary: Sometimes a mission goes great, sometimes not so. Rookie mistakes can happen if your mind is elsewhere. Natasha takes a hit, but she isn't about to let it keep her down. Even when that hit leads to going against the people she trusts, she must get through the next five months for her own safety, the safety of a child and possibly the safety of the planet.
1. Chapter 1

"38- year-old female, GSW to the right side of chest cavity, Dr Banner provided oscillating bandaging and CPR was needed at the scene, suspected pneumothorax. Theatre slot needed urgently, internal damage unknown. Neck and spine clear."

Natasha heard them speaking, her eyes were open but all she saw was blinding white orbs from the strip lighting above. She had been shot. Dammit, rookie mistake.

The ketamine was clearing the pain, she couldn't feel the piercing wound of the projectile but her chest barely rose with each breath. There was an oxygen mask glued with sweat to her face, the smell was horrible. She could feel the bandage covering the hole in her chest, it crinkled each time she took a breath. There was a draft above her hip from where banner had lifted her top to get at the wound. Although Natasha knew she could move she didn't have the energy, a mix of shock, pain meds and lack of oxygen took all her desire to move straight from her.

She was woozy, her head felt fuzzy. Every bump the wheeled hospital trolley went over resulted in a deep stab in her side after a few of these she began to feel sick. After a few more she threw up.

There wasn't much time, a nurse suctioned the vomit from her mouth as they moved. She could hear medic babble going on around her, people discussing anaesthesia and blade size. They asked if it was a known weapon as if she had somehow shot herself?

It was becoming harder to care, she was both hot and cold. She felt damp but couldn't tell if that was sweat or rain. She wasn't even sure it had been raining. The fog was working deeper into her head, like worms wriggling through her veins to the centre. She shut her eyes, didn't want to throw up again. The bumping continued for a few moments, double doors were banged open and slammed behind her and her medical entourage.

The light of the theatre had her eyes opening once more.

"Natasha Romanoff: left lateral chest anterior bullet wound to the eleventh intercostal space. The patient had an episode of emesis, we're unaware of any head trauma but a concussion is possible. Dr Gregorovich on his way."

A nurse said more to a guy in green standing by her head but she heard nothing more until another guy in green scrubs- possibly a girl, she couldn't tell- spoke directly to her for the first time since she had left the care of Bruce and Clint.

"Natasha, I'm just administering the anaesthetic now."

She closed her eyes again. This was when it got gory. She listened out for any form of sound, a beeping or a clicking, anything she could focus on to try and deal with the pain she knew was coming next.

Anaesthetics and Natasha had never been a good mix. She didn't know if it was because those in the Red Room had meddled with her genetics, or whether she had always been like this. The drugs made her unable to move, unable to speak, but left her totally aware.

She could feel it at first, feel the gloved fingers and cold steel instruments being shoved into the bullet hole in her side. She listened to her own heart rate, the steady beeping that usually gave away if a person was feeling any pain but in the Red Room Natasha had learned how to steady herself. If they knew you felt pain they could use it against you. She had a brand mark from the first time she had let her breathing get out of hand – it was a simple line on her shoulder blade, no one else would know what it was – she had learned after the first time, had not been burned again.

The beeping, beep, beep, beep, was calming. She felt sick again but knew she had to keep it down. Beep, beep, beep.

"Scalpel."

The surgeon asked, she tried her best to concentrate on the beeping, on the red lights dancing about behind her closed eyes. The cut was made, she screamed on the inside. She was nine years old again, she was being branded with an iron poker except this time the poker was stabbing deep into her skin, ripping through her flesh and muscle as it went deeper. She gagged, it wouldn't be long and she would faint, sub come to a mix of the anaesthesia and pain, and loss of blood.

She was awake before they were aware, as was always the case. She awoke in the theatre itself, the extreme theatre lights blinding her. The oxygen was back on, but this time it was coming through prongs shoved in her nose and tightened around the back of her head. She felt nothing, nothing of her body as though it wasn't even connected. She wiggled her fingers ever so slightly, making sure she was still in her body and this wasn't some sort of post-death experience.

They had lifted the bedsides, covered her with a thin blanket and lifted her arms over the top of it. Looking down at her arms, which felt unusually heavy, she could see an IV plugged into each arm at the inside of the elbow. One was pulsing blood into her pale arms, the other was pushing through saline.

She closed her eyes once more, letting herself breathe the cold feeling oxygen. Her head flopped slightly to the side but she had no energy to move it back.

The third time she awoke was in a state of panic, she couldn't breathe. Her breathing was laboured and shallow, she couldn't get a breath in before another was needed. She held a buzzing noise beside her head, a voice

"Come on Nat, don't do this to an old man." She knew the voice but couldn't place it. Then there was a team at her side. Nurses, doctors, consultants – they swarmed around her. She heard words but before they could even register in her brain she had forgotten what they were.

The Oxygen was turned up, her bed was flattened. Natasha felt heavy, she couldn't lift her head, she couldn't open her eyes even more than the slits she was seeing through. Her vision was going fuzzy, as if she was piloting on a bad day. She couldn't feel her chest rising or falling, it seemed to be in a state of flux, a state of confusion just like her brain.

The fog was getting deeper, thicker and harder to peer through. Poor visibility. If in the Quinjet this would be an emergency landing, in the hospital, when you aren't able to breathe, it was time to relax, to give in and let the Doc's work for a living.

The fourth time was it. She was awake this time and had no intentions of letting herself go under again. She felt odd, groggy and full of drugs. Her chest hurt, but it was dull and heavy, not sharp and piercing.

This time she was in a room, not the theatre or ER. She was still being pumped full of liquids, breathing in the cool oxygen and still she didn't have the energy to lift her head. She had to, she had to get up, get on and pretend there was no pain. She was an expert at that, she could get through most things in order to make her way to her apartment and dump her butt on her own sofa.

"Romanoff?"

This time she knew the voice, Fury.

She glanced to her left to find her old Boss sitting right at her head. He wore sunglasses rather than his usual eyepatch. He carried a walking cane as a prop and wore a lumberjack shirt that she swore she had seen on Barton.

"Girl, you don't go down often but when you do," He finished with a high whistle.

"Shattered a few ribs on impact, pierced a lung, chest drain, lost six pints, the whole damn works."

She smirked, unlike some agents she didn't take a day for a few flesh wounds, this, this was just beyond a scratch in her books.

"Sir, excuse my inappropriate language but, did they catch the bastard?"

He sighed, stood - leaving his prop walking stick on the arm of the chair – and paced to the end of the room. He turned, his leather trench coat billowing.

"No, no they didn't. The Team's on it now, Faye Kowalski has been contacted, she and the asset are safe. We'll get the guy Natasha – always do."

She felt herself nod slightly.

It had seemed so run of the mill, such an easy takedown and evac but the guy – Hagerman – he knew the plan, inside intel had been breached and now, one member down, a code green disaster and the evac of the innocents, it was a bloody mess in more ways than one.

Natasha groaned, leaning back on her pillows. She went to lift the flimsy blanket off her body but Nick slapped his hand to the bed rail.

"No way, Romanoff. We need you, preferably in one piece, you move one toe off that bed and I'll make sure you're tied to it next time."

Natasha groaned, of course, the team would make sure she was well and truly babysat, they also knew she owed her life to Nick and as much as she was a spy, she honoured her word to those it mattered to. Nick was the reason she was alive, Nick gave her a second chance – a job – when both the USA and USSR were baying for her blood and her shrunken head on a stick.

"So, I just sit here? Wasting valuable time, we could be looking for this guy?"

Nick smirked,

"You know Romanoff? There's a reason we see eye to eye, you don't like sitting on your ass. You're my kind of girl and that is why this hospital visit is going to become,"

He paused to remove a small seven-inch tablet from his inside pocket.

"A working holiday."

She smiled despite her weakness, reaching out for the tablet.

"Anytime Boss, anytime."


	2. Chapter 2

"Ms Romanoff, may I speak with you?" The young, blonde male nurse stood in the doorway to her hospital room. He clutched a clipboard and she could almost smell his nerves. She also knew that look, the look she often saw on the faces of young men, the look of attraction. The look of attraction on the face of someone trying to be professional. She had been trained as a femme fatale, she could flirt in her sleep, usually without any awareness she was doing it.

Fury cleared his throat and the nurse glanced at him, opened his mouth to speak, but Natasha butted in first, knowing what he would ask.

"Yes, he can stay, anything you want to tell me he can hear."

The nurse nodded and began to walk across the floor towards the bed. His rubber soled plimsols made a soft patting noise on the floor with each step. He kept eyeing Nick, as though trying to work out if they were an item. He edged himself cautious down the side of the bed, watching Nick as he moved. Natasha swore if she made a loud enough noise he would scream.

He found a spot next to Fury's chair and began to speak,

"Ms. Romanoff, we have the results of your routine bloods. We have found a high level of the hormone hCG in your system." He paused, watching Natasha as though waiting for her to reply. She hadn't a clue what he was trying to ask her.

"The hCG hormone is usually only seen in two situations, most commonly in pregnant women, but as you have had a tubal ligation several years back this could be indicative of a reproductive tumour."

Great, she thought. She wasn't worried, a tumour could be taken out, her body healed relatively fast so if there was a cancer she'd be able to wipe it pretty soon. She was most worried about the time off work, more time in a hospital. He thoughts were interrupted as the nurse continued.

"With your consent your consultant, Dr. Kellichan, will come and do a brief ultrasound on a portable device. It will take a few moments and will hopefully confirm our belief there may be a tumour."

Natasha took the clipboard from him before he could say any more and scribbled her signature – well, one of them – onto the line at the bottom. The poor kid, he looked stunned, he had clearly been warned before he came in the room, been warned as best the staff could that Natasha was a bit odd. He clearly had not been expecting this.

She didn't particularly care what they were going to do, they got out the tumour, that was all she needed, then she could carry on.

Fury didn't say much in the next few minutes. The nurse was right, the consultant was quick, but then she presumed Stark had chipped in so she would receive the best of care.

She was concerned about the old man, she herself wasn't worried, he shouldn't be but she felt he was.

Not much thought went into it after the consultant appeared, clutching stark tech.

The woman was small and thin to the point of fragility, she wore glasses with a chain even though he must have been younger than Natasha herself.

The Stark tech, which appeared to be a small, clear tablet at first, was placed on her stomach rather than being hand held. No cold, sticky gel, no fuss.

Both the consultant and Fury watched the little screen, now illuminated with green lights and purring happily.

Natasha had to lay flat, breathe normally, think of nothing much. The scanner continued to whir but the sound paused suddenly and another replaced it.

Whom-whom-whom-whom.

At first she thought it was a malfunction of the tech. Then she saw Nick's face, a look of anguish had turned to one of pride. He met her eyes. She glanced away, looking at the consultant, there had to be some sort of explanation for this.

The consultant looked just as surprised as Fury, but she also looked delighted. Natasha was far from delighted. She was horrified, this was impossible. It couldn't be, but just as she began trying to convince herself it was all a sick joke, the Consultant spoke.

"I've only heard of this, never seen it in practise, pregnancy after tubal ligation."

"Pregnant?" Natasha spat back at her, the doctor nodded.

"Yes, Ms Romanoff, you're pregnant."


	3. Chapter 3

"Romanoff, you've got a tail at five o'clock."  
"Roger that Rogers,"  
Natasha was calm, collected, enjoying the chance to switch off half her brain, to think with logic and strategy. She had been free from the hospital a few days, she was on light duties due to her injuries but being an Avenger didn't lend itself to light duties.  
This, luckily, was a practise mission. It was set up by Friday, the new iron man interface, the team had to complete it using real tools, real strategies but there was no real danger.  
Unless, Natasha thought, pulling the jet into a dive, you kill yourself by getting too into it.  
Their objective was securing Stark Industries files, Natasha was acting the distraction as well as the eyes in the air, while Clint - who was usually in Nat's place - patrolled the ground. Rogers and Stark were securing the files, while Bruce worked on the cover.  
Clint came in on the comms.  
"I dunno how you do it Nat, this running is exhausting."  
"Swap you anytime Barton, I'm not 100% on my Barrel rolls."  
She heard him laugh before Bruce was heard.  
"Well unlucky Clint, Natasha is no running for a while, doctors orders- and I'm not the one that gave them."  
Nat felt her eyes roll, she'd had worse, this bullet hadn't pierced the other side like the one in Odessa several years previous.  
"No running?" Tony's voice was next to penetrate her ears. She winced, he always spoke so loud on the Comms.  
"Well I vote for a speed limit, she can walk at 20 miles an hour as it is, running won't stop her spilling a lung."  
For a moment Natasha had frozen, they all sounded like they knew, but it was only the bullet they knew of, not the other foreign object still inside her. They had discharged her but the small issue of an embryo was still there.  
She was booked in for a termination in three days time, and would prefer it to stay hush hush if she could. It was, in reality, the only option. She may have risked a baby back when she KGB - or FSB, as they were now - but now she had a planet to protect, she had switched to a Utilitarian view on life, 'the needs of the many over the needs of the few.' In lay terms, one baby had less right to life than hundreds - even thousands - of people. She couldn't book in maternity leave any more than she could book a holiday, 'sorry, the widow is putting her feet up, press one if you are considering world domination.'  
No, it couldn't happen- it wasn't supposed to happen. They'd tied her tubes when she was still a teenager. She wasn't sure exactly how old she had been, those years of her life all seemed to mash into borsch in her head. She remembered coming to America in the sixties, remembered infiltrating Stark Industries as a big mission, still with Yelena at her side.  
Those memories were why, exactly why, she would never risk that sort of relationship, no one could depend on her just as she could depend on no one. A small human, a bright eyed little Ptennets like she had once been, it would simply create another Dyvoshki Ivana, a second generation Red Room graduate. Was psychopathy genetic? She didn't know, but she wasn't willing to find out. America didn't need any more psychopaths.

"Nat! Missile strike two o'clock, 10 seconds, move your ass!"  
Clint came over comms, Natasha glanced to her left, the artificial missile - a flame retardant firework of sorts- was gaining ground with real timing. Natasha took a breathe, damn she hated barrel roles, and pulled the jet sharply to the right.

She had been researching the history of tubal ligations trying to work out what had gone wrong with hers. The surgery had seemed to go as planned, she had recovered fast, no infection and got very drunk only a few days after the operation.  
Of course when she had her surgery it had been a different time, the type of surgery was in itself pioneering. There may have been mistakes, or, more likely, corners cut. And besides that even in a modern tubal ligation there was a small chance of tissues re-forming and eggs getting through. She had never realised this, and why would she, it had been years since she had any signs of fertility at all.  
In true style she had encrypted all her print-outs, sticking them up on her Pyrex investigations panel across the back wall of her room. She always made sure if anyone dared enter her room without knocking they wouldn't understand a word of her behind-the-scenes work.  
This, of course, was highly personal research, written in a mix of the enigma code and the Cyrillic alphabet. Pieces of coloured string were stuck between the sheets of paper, linking her research both on the modern op and the old-style one, and with a little bit of KGB corruption thrown in for good measure.  
The truth was the KGB didn't want you knowing everything- even if you were on the inside - it made clean up easier and less messy than it may have been otherwise. That meant Natasha could have been told anything they wanted to tell her, it could have been a test for some drug, some new enhancement. She did know Ivan had cared too much to risk her health. She had been his main asset, she worked hard, she spilled blood for him, so he would keep her alive.  
"Hey, Nat," a knock sounded on the bedroom door. If the voice hadn't given it away then the knock would have, Clint was never very good at judging his own strength.  
Natasha sighed, standing up from her bed where she had been leaning over the screen of her laptop, and going to open the door for her friend. Before Natasha could open it however Clint pushed it open. His jaw was set, but she couldn't tell if he was only angry, or wether there was a mixture of concern in there too. This made her uneasy, it wasn't like Clint, he usually let things be, let Natasha screw up her own life in her own way.  
"So I took a phone call there just now, from St. John's" he paused, swallowing and pretending to look nonplused.  
Der' mo.  
"Thing is Natasha, to have a termination you need to be pregnant."


	4. Chapter 4

Having drawn him into the room and insisted he sat down on the bed Natasha knew there wasn't any more stalling to be done. It had to be now. She could tell in moments like these how much the team had changed her. She would never have felt bad for withholding information in the past but now, Clint had her back and he had always presumed she trusted him. She did, but this part of her story went far beyond trust.

"Clint, I know I should have told you-,"

"Told me what Natasha? I felt sorry for you, I really did, the whole not being able to have children of your own? If that's so then how can you be pregnant, huh? I thought you talked to me, I thought we knew each other well enough to be past this."

She tried to put a hand on his arm, but he shrugged away, staring at the floor.

"Clint, there's nothing to it, I think there's been some sort of biological disaster. God, he was right, he knew something would go wrong."

"Knew?" Clint looked at her, confusion was very quickly replaced with shock, something you never really saw on the face of a guy who had fought mind control, robots, and aliens with archery.

"You, you and Bruce, you slept together?"

Natasha stood up, god it was all so wrong, such a sloppy mess and she had no idea if it had left permanent damage. She paced to the door, turned on her heel and walked back, eyes focused on the groves of the wooden floorboards.

"Natasha, you slept with the hulk." Now he sounded like himself, goofy and giggly and in this moment irritating.

"No, obviously I didn't sleep with the green guy, I'd probably be dismembered if I had. But yes, Dr. Banner has to be the thing's biological father.

"Thing?" Clint said the word softly, with concern. He was a family guy, she still remembered way back when he had come to her for advice when Laura was pregnant with their first. He was the type of guy who was all for Natasha making crap decisions but not when they involved another life. She had thought he'd find this hard but there was no other way. She didn't want another way.

"Yes, thing, embryo, whatever you want to call it, look something happened, the nurse explained it, it was a one in a thousand chance that even though I had my tubes tied they left everything in there – its common, keeps hormones in check – it means that one of the eggs still got through and I, lucky me, got pregnant. I don't know if its anything to do with the big guy and his metabolism or anything. I just know I've got to finish the job properly this time."

Clint clasped his hands, he too looked at the floor for answers.

"You're going to give it away? Your one chance to be a Mom and you're not taking it."

"Clint, how can I? Someone's invading the city and I'm having a nap? 'oh, catch the bad guy widow' sorry just let me haul myself up first? I'd be a sitting duck Clint and then when it was born? Who would look after it, who could possibly keep it safe?"

"Fury-,"

"Yeah, Fury made it work for you but unless you forgot we don't even know where Bruce is, we don't know if he'll come back. What if there's a code green while he's holding a newborn, do you really think he could live with that? No, I'm sorry Clint, he won't know. I'll get the termination and things can go back to the way they work."

Clint lifted his hands as if waiting to say something else but he knew it was pointless, instead he shook his head gently.

"I really thought you'd want a go at motherhood, after, you know."

He saw her jaw tighten, he knew better.

Natasha said nothing for a moment, her teeth grinding together. He wasn't supposed to know any of the past, he was supposed to believe the facade.

"No one hears, Clint, no one."

He would go for her left, she was weaker there but he was a gentleman and would not go for the chest, usually, he'd go for the upper arm, a twist which would off-balance the average woman. She dove into the fight, the young SHIELD agent she was training threw in an equal effort but he was untrained, had dodgy battle math and would give in within a few moments.

Natasha herself wasn't on top of her game, she had felt terrible on awakening that morning. Only after throwing up water due to an entirely empty stomach and then again after some saltines did it dawn on her this was all hormones. Natasha didn't get ill, she couldn't even remember her last cold but that morning she had felt awful.

It showed in her fight, she was off balance, weak and struggling to keep her footholds. This, this was why she needed to get rid of it. She wasn't on top of her game and that could be deadly at best. The young man caught her by the right arm, twisting it back as far as it would go, she went in for a bite, missing and instead bit right into her own tongue.

Blood spurted into her mouth, she could taste it as well as feel it dribbling out the corners of her mouth and onto her chin. She hadn't called the safety, he didn't notice the blood and he aimed another punch, Natasha twisted to avoid the punch. She wasn't fast enough. The blow went straight to her stomach. Natasha was forced back, hitting the floor with a loud thump. The pain was more than a punch should leave.

She gagged, curling herself tightly into a ball around the wound. Her eyes closed, god it hurt, something wasn't right, it was more than a hit. She heard the young agent cross the room and slam his palm on the panic button on the wall. Her eyes opened, she wretched again, a mouthful of blood spattering the polished floor.

There was the sound of skidding feet on the floor, more pairs followed.

"Tasha? Tasha! Come on," The voice was Clint. He lifted her head, cupping her cheek and stroking it with a soft hand. Soft for a bloke anyway. Natasha's eyes opened she looked up at Clint and saw horror in his eyes.

"Agent Barton," the poor kid spoke, tripping over his words in fear of what was happening.

"Where did you get her? What made this happen." The kid hesitated, Natasha didn't hear a response from the boy but heard the response of Steve, who must have been the other to enter the room.

"Clint, she's winded, she'll be alright."

"No," Clint spoke. His arm went under her legs and she flopped against his chest. An arm was taken from her side and wrapped around his shoulder as he lifted her into his arms. She felt weak, sick, and in pain which had gone further than the muscles.

"We need medics." Clint sighed, pausing and she could almost hear the decision being made in the tone of his sigh.

"Natasha's pregnant."


	5. Chapter 5

She felt groggy, sore, and the events since that morning were fuzzy and lost down long backstreets inside her mind, she didn't want to search for them now, things were still wrong. It took her a moment to feel the world around her, to hear yet more incessant beeping and a sound that almost made her want to scream. Whomp-whomp-whomp-whomp.

A heartbeat, a tiny, fast heartbeat.

It was still alive; the thing was alive. The embryo that she never wanted to have inside her again, it was squirming happily, a little parasite within her body, feeding off her and getting all it could want from her.

It took her some time to feel truly awake, to drag her eyelids up and open her eyes to see the room around her. Hospital, obviously. Private room, expected. She took in the usual monitors at the side of her head, the usual peg thing on her finger checking her SATs. There was a window all along the far side, looking out onto the car park. Nice view. Her eyes continued round to the, thankfully empty, chair beside her. They had left her in peace.

The door banged open and she almost jumped, turning quickly and punching forward with her hand in the way she usually did but of course this time her gauntlets were missing. And she wasn't under attack.

Two figures entered, one ahead of the other. The other being Clint, who looked like he was trying to reason with the first figure. It would have looked silly to anyone else, the big muscular guy following a skinny dude, but they all knew better. This guy was the one she had been dreading, that she had hoped she would be able to avoid until the whole damn thing was over and done. This was the father of the little parasite.

Doctor Banner came straight to her side, pushing the hair out of his face with one absent hand. He looked pale, worried - but thankfully not green.

"Natasha, I, this should not have happened. It's supposed to be scientifically impossible. I should never have presumed that I was infertile after the accident, I should never have taken that chance, and you, you weren't supposed to be able to - good god, what has he done to you?"

Clint came over, stuffing his hands into his pockets and trying to look casual, look like he wasn't listening to every word the worried doctor was sprouting.

Natasha held up her hand, he was speaking too fast, she was barely taking in a word. It shouldn't have made any difference if he was able to father kids or not, this should not have happened, she had been fine for years, Christ she didn't want to know how many people work had called her to get in bed with and nothing had happened before. That was when she called on some of the Doc's words. 'What has he done to you?'

"Bruce," her voice sounded gross, she sounded ill and that was far from flattering, " He didn't touch me, you know that the hulk had no involvement at all."

She trailed off, Banner was shaking his head, he hadn't meant that.

"No, him, the little one - it could be her – she's responsible for this, your injuries. You're not strong enough to carry this type of baby, no one is."

Shit.

"What? Bruce, she was working. A guy got a good hit, bleeding from the spleen and some kidney upset. The baby didn't do any of this. It's just a normal baby in there."

"Stop calling it that!"

Natasha felt the outburst come from nowhere, it grew and erupted in double time leaving both the men staring at her. She felt strange, wrong and sick and her back was bloody sore but worst of all was the betrayal. This was wrong, Bruce couldn't suffer like this, he wanted the good life, the semi with three kids and Natasha to give up work and be a good girl. It was what he wanted, but she couldn't force herself to want the same.

"It's not a baby, its an embryo. Sure, it's healthy, it seems happy and its starting to make me look fat but I can't have that. I gave this all away, I gave up my right to this and I don't want it. Bruce, I'm having an abortion. It's settled, it's organized and it's my damn body, I'm sorry. I really am, but I can't do this, I can't be the woman this thing needs. In a few days, we can forget this ever happened, we can forget I ever got pregnant and I'll finish things up and get the whole lot removed."

Before Bruce could comment, before Clint could comment, the doors swung forward, Nick came floating in, his leather trench coat out behind him like the horizontal stabilizers on a small plane. He was followed by two armed men, CIA plastered on their arms.

"I'm afraid that decision isn't yours to make Ms. Romanoff. In your belly is a scientific break through the likes of which the world has never seen. You're to be put before a panel, not my orders, but when you got busy with one of the worlds most dangerous scientific disasters the world decided you signed over the rights to that infant's life."


	6. Chapter 6

Fifteen weeks and three days earlier

* * *

'Ugh! Tasha."

She couldn't prevent the smirk on her face. Most guys reacted this way to her ability to hold her own in this situation but with Bruce, she knew it was real. She ground her hips further down letting him slip deeper into her body. While leaning further back to steady herself with her arms, shoving her boobs better into his line of sight.

He bucked up into her, making her wince from the sudden change in pressure. He didn't look at her, kept his eyes closed tight. She knew he hadn't had sex in way too long, knew he didn't risk it in case of a code green but she had built his trust, she knew he wanted this - needed this and she was the best person for it, the only one who had a natural armour against the other guy.

She wasn't used to wanting this, normally it was work, she made the right moves and the right noises till they were asleep and she, usually, was covered in a sticky substance, that is if she hadn't needed to swallow it. There was not much worse than sleeping with a man you didn't care for but Natasha had got so comfortable over the years that she had forgotten this. She had forgotten the feeling of being caressed, of being loved gently rather than used.

Bruce scrambled with his hands, reaching to grab her thigh in need of something to hold, something to connect with while she coaxed his hips. He groaned, opening his eyes for a second. She caught his eyes on her nipples and, feeling he needed the invitation, took his hand from her thigh and cupped them around her breasts. She leaned forwards, tossing her hair over the side of her head so it hung away from Bruce.

"That's it, doctor, touch me."

She was expecting his next move and guided herself down as he flipped them so she herself was on her back. He likes that, she noted, but it was only seconds before surprise took her back to Bruce.

He had pulled out, was laying on her, gently massaging her body in a way she hadn't been touched for years. She found her own hips slowly bobbing along with his touch.

Christ.

"Bruce, I want you, I want you inside me. Please doctor."

That was all the encouragement he needed. Things became thick and fast, she was surprised by his need, by the built-up testosterone that he needed to release. His mouth found her neck and began to kiss and suck with each thrust of his hips. She was gonna have a hell of a bruise.

He was starting to lose it, the sweat glistening on his back as she clawed manicured up and down his back. She heard the springs on the mattress screech. Not too long, good god this was nothing like she'd had for a long time, and clearly nothing like anything he had ever experienced.

"Natasha,"

he took her face in his hands, leaned forward and kissed her full and deep and she felt a leap in the fire inside her. He went to pull out but she quickly pushed her heels into his thighs, their eyes met and she shook her head.

"It's ok, I want you to."

* * *

"Come on Nat, spill, you've got a look on your face - like the cat who got the cream."

Natasha smirked, trying hard to concentrate on shining the barrel of her Glock. Clint was easy to tease, unlike Bruce who had taken some persuasion. Clint also could be the girl in any situation, he enjoyed the gossip and part of her sometimes wondered if he was ruler-straight like he came across due to his serious interest in her bedroom triumphs.

"What if," she began, still refusing to look at him but she could feel herself beginning to smile.

"The cat did get the cream, huh?"

She could almost hear the lightbulb in his mind go off.

"We aren't talking about real cream here are we?"

Natasha laughed and turned to face her friend just as he let out an excited whisper,

"You slept with Banner?"

She shrugged.

"Wow Nat, that took work, like to get him to open up,"

"Clint, please, I was trained to sleep with anyone, male, female, non-binary, I can get through to Bruce, better than most can."

"All I can say kid is that it's a damn good thing no one can knock you up."


	7. Chapter 7

She felt crap. Again, it was becoming a common occurrence for the past month. She was running out of time. She felt awful, she felt fat and most days she felt angry. The day she had got out of the hospital for the second time in a few short weeks, she had gone to put on a standard pair of black skinny jeans only to find the button wasn't going anywhere near the buttonhole.

That was when it had started to be crap when she had started to get angry. She wasn't allowed to spend five minutes on her own to go to the bathroom, the government had eyes on her, the CIA had eyes, ex-SHIELD and she wouldn't have been surprised if the KGB or whatever they called themselves these days, had their toes in the water too.

She had been brought home from St John's by Clint and the moment she entered Avenger's tower all eyes were on her. They knew from the moment she got home that she was pregnant with a baby which could kill her, or worse, had the capacity to be a destroyer. Tony had broken it all with a deadpan comment about how Natasha was grumpy enough without hormones. No one had been in the mood to laugh, especially not Natasha.

And now, when she was no longer able to comfortably lie on her stomach to sleep, she was worse, everything was worse. She had started having vivid dreams, dreams which featured Ivan and Nikolai; and Rose.

Sitting up on the bed, eyeing up the monitor on the wall which was both tracking her movement and her heat signatures. She couldn't escape, couldn't remove herself from this world, a world which was being ruled by this thing inside her.

Today was point one, phase one, the first match. Today she phased a council to plead her case, to try anything to make them see sense, how could they feel it was right to bring a child into the world which they knew nothing about, knew nothing of its capabilities and then run tests on it for its whole life. She'd been there, done that, and was not letting someone else go through it if she had anything to do with it.

Her head felt heavy and her eyes desperate to close. She seemed incapable of getting enough sleep at the moment, the parasite taking all her energy and all her skill. Glancing at her bedside table a pink post-it was stuck onto a little plastic tub. She peeled off the note,

Natasha, try and eat first thing, before you get up, might help you feel a bit more level. Worked for Laura, Clint ?

Inside the tub was a few plain biscuits, she took one gingerly and nibbled on it. Throwing up when she had to look presentable in two hours wasn't an option. So, Clint was comparing her to when his wife was pregnant. It was most likely sound advice, the sort of thing that he had always given her but she didn't like the comparison. They had wanted their baby.

She wasn't sure if Bruce did. He knew better than to argue with her even if he did, but she wasn't sure. She knew he would not dream of anyone becoming the big guy in the way he did, but she also knew he wanted what Clint had.

He had been relatively distant recently and she presumed he was trying to work out his own standpoint before he could decide how best to back the argument. She knew he would pretend to back her even if he wasn't sure. He didn't want the kid to end up in the hands of the government even if he wanted it to live. There must have been some part of Bruce, the scientist, who saw what could happen for better and for worse and Natasha imagined that was exactly what he was afraid of.

She glanced once more around the room, feeling the need to stick up her middle finger to the camera but managing to restrain herself, whoever was watching her was going to see her naked and as much as being naked in front of people – or cameras – was not a new thing for her, doing so with this body was very different. She had found it was making her less confident. Sure, it was effecting her natural balance and making her feel gross most of the time but the confidence thing bugged her, and she could only pray that she could get through this meeting with the confidence you would expect of a world-class spy, even though she wasn't sure that would happen.


	8. Chapter 8

"Ms. Romanoff, you believe you have an argument against the decision of the courts that this pregnancy should be carried to term? Is it not true your psychological evaluators in the past have not read a sound mind?"

"Ma'am, if you are going to argue grounds of insanity then surely it is of greater risk to this country that I am given access to a child? If this country believed me insane I would not have access to some of their highest intel."

The Woman sitting across from Natasha, wearing a blouse so frilly and flowery it looked like it had been cut out of old curtains, was clearly not used to questioning. Or at least she was not used to questioning an ex-spy. There was a knack for it, to getting anything at all out of Natasha just as much as there was a knack for Natasha herself in knowing how to reply. She had been trained at this since a very young age.

Once the Widows, at around the age of eight or nine, had been sent out on task to persuade the people of Stalingrad that they were starving orphans. They did not get fed that night in the compound so if they did not persuade then they went hungry. If on the first day they did not succeed then they were sent out again on the following day, on and on until the hunger broke them into real starving orphans.

She didn't remember exactly how they had done it but it had been working with Yelena that had got them both through the exercise. Natasha had got the praise which had been the beginning of prising apart the friendship with the second best of the girls in the programme.

It was due to Yelena that Natasha was alive now, and it was due to Natasha that Yelena was not. There was a form of corruption in that, similar to the corruption she would face in this hearing by the people she had begun to trust. She should have known better.

"So, Ms. Romanoff, if you are saying that you are of sound and stable mind then what makes you unfit to carry the infant?"

"I did not say I was, I simply noted the facts of the situation. I was raised in a world of fear and torture, I kill for a living. That hasn't changed, only my boss has."

The woman was looking more and more frustrated, Natasha was shoving it back in her face, spy 101; return the questions, even if it just buys you time to think up some suitable and convincing crap.

"May I ask about your medical history, Agent, it appears you had a tubal ligation many years ago, yet you, at this time, did not agree with the surgery?"

"Negative. At the time, Ma'am, I did not want the surgery because I was naïve, and I doubted the finesse of the surgeons."

"You were married once, to an Alexei Shostakov, is this correct?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And you were widowed?"

"Yes."

The woman looked stumped once more, she had been hoping for more than that. She had wanted an emotional response, something she stood no chance of getting from Natasha. In terms of Alexei, she had only met the man once or twice, she had been in her early twenties and, most importantly, she had been in love with someone else. It had been the last time she has allowed to let her true feelings show. Someone had been hurt then, and they would be hurt again now.

"You show little response, Agent?"

"It was a marriage of necessity. I barely knew him, excuse me but what does this have to do with the case at hand?"

The woman did not respond to Natasha's question, instead, she sprouted out another.

"Agent, the father of this child, it is Dr. Banner, am I correct?"

Now Natasha saw why the lack of response, the woman had been piecing it together, beginning to tie some threads and trying her hardest to knock Natasha off the edge.

"I do not need to tell you that. I can object, you are making a decision on whether an embryo thrives based on its parentage."

The Woman smiled again.

"Ms. Romanoff, a fly in the web of a spider is said to lie still because of the threads and because it is hypnotized, but what if, instead, the fly is simply happy to be there."

She stood,

"You have friends here Natasha, friends who will tell us the truth, if even it takes a little prompting. We will have lie detection done on all the inhabitants of Avenger's tower. Someone will tell, even if they don't know it."


	9. Chapter 9

Natasha stood at the entranceway to the main living area. She stood there for the third or fourth time. She had been pacing, and she wasn't the sort of person to pace. She was a nail-biter sometimes but more out of boredom than out of anxiety. Was this anxiety? Perhaps, perhaps it was boredom or leg cramp. She didn't care what it was. Hesitation and worries were usually more deadly than their opposite. That was something she had known since she was very young. One of the young girls in the Red Room - Masha - had been killed at the hands of Yelena when they were not even ten years old, Masha has skills but she was too kind. She could have slipped the choke hold but instead, she hesitated. Yelena broke her neck.

The first in had been Clint, so naturally, he would be the first out. The whole team had been kept separate from Natasha since dawn. They had been round up spontaneously so they had no chance to prepare their cover stories. It was gone ten am, no one had come out of the detainment area. She knew they would all be interviewed separately. She had seen Clint being moved from one room to another and presumed he was being moved for questioning and the detector test, but even that had been over an hour earlier.

She had been having these strange feelings in her stomach all morning, strange gurgling movements - almost as though real butterflies had infiltrated her body. She hoped it wasn't something wrong with the fetus, because that would mean a possible miscarriage and as much as Natasha herself would have been more than happy with that eventuality she knew it would mean more chatter, more testing and more investigation than she needed right now. Still, the legal date of abortion, the limit she was allowed to reach before the kid lived, was gaining on her and she didn't like it.

To her surprise, the first to leave the room wasn't Clint. It was someone she hadn't even expected to be interviewed, a civilian by all counts and a person who should never have to go through that stress. The first to exit the cordoned off zone of Avenger's tower was Pepper Potts.

Pepper looked exhausted and a little dishevelled by the situation. Agent's were used to sudden, unexpected wake-up calls, sudden interrogations but Pepper was Tony's CEO, Tony's girlfriend and the girl who was swept up in this mess due to circumstances alone.

"Nat," She smiled softly on seeing the spy she barely knew. As she took in the expressions both obvious and less so on the face of Pepper, Natasha noticed that this was the only other woman in the tower, yet Natasha barely spoke to her. She didn't even know what Pepper's standpoint was on the whole situation.

Pepper crossed the room, a grey SHIELD-issue blanket, the type they used in emergency situations, was slumped over her shoulders and she headed straight for the sofa in order to sit down. She sighed as she sunk into the sofa and Natasha walked casually over, folding her arms under her breasts and looking at Pepper, waiting for some sort of intel.

Pepper looked first at Natasha's stomach, then up to her face. Something the Agent had started to get used to recently.

"You can see it now, you can tell there's a baby in there." Natasha looked down, running a hand roughly over the swelling in her stomach as though it was puppy fat she wanted to get rid off.

"It's not our decision," Pepper sighed and it drew Natasha's eyes straight away to the face of the blonde.

"I know, I know that little baby could do so much for us, could help armour the world but you can't grow a child for science. No one should be able to make a child into the mould they want it in, no child should have to exist in a world where it shouldn't."

Pepper looked at her bare feet, she still wore silky, blue pyjamas which Natasha presumed actually belonged to Tony.

"I've done it."

Natasha felt her mouth dry. Was she about to be told something she didn't want to know, was Tony almost a Father?

Pepper seemed to notice Natasha's change in demeanour and shook her head.

"I don't think it was his, we'd only slept together once. I think I know who fathered that kid."

Again she paused, breathing in.

"But, I wasn't ready. There was no steady relationship, no Father. There was no future for that baby. It still hurts, it will always hurt, but I did what I had to do." She laughed once to herself,

"And I'm no superhero."

Natasha was about to deny the status everyone seemed to be putting on her these days. She wasn't a hero, she would never be a hero in the way they thought. She had so many lives to save in order to even rectify those she had ended that she would never be as good as the average person let alone a hero to hundreds throughout the world in the way Tony or Cap was.

The door opened once again and this time Bruce exited. He was looking around himself, looking flustered and his cheeks were red from clear embarrassing questions.

His eyes flashed around the room until he saw Natasha and he quickly crossed to her, his head shaking.

Before Bruce could speak the door once more opened and Clint exited. He looked angry; saddened by the situation.

"We tried Nat, they've got too much data. They know it's his, they know what it could be and they don't give a damn about what that means for the rest of the world."


	10. Chapter 10

(A/N) Thank you for your thoughts Lmere969, you read my mind, I hope this helps :)

* * *

It felt like another age before the last members of the team were released from questioning but after only a few minutes real time, Tony and Steve emerged together. Tony looked stressed, uncomfortable and possibly a bit bemused and given that only Bruce and Clint had known about the problem before this interrogation - she suspected the others new but now it was confirmed - she was not surprised at the reaction from Tony. Steve, however, was someone she worried about more. She was almost close to Steve, as close as she had ever been to anyone besides Clint and she had a feeling this would break him. Yes, her and the Captain had some very similar experiences of times changing but at least she had lived through those years, those decades, whereas Steve had only had an internet-sourced recap.

Natasha wasn't sure how the captain would take her feelings if he would find it inhumane how little she cared about the blobby human inside her. Would he be at odds with what the game plan should be? Would it hurt him as much as she knew it was hurting Bruce?

She knew some things had to be done for herself, not the team and despite the team but on this occasion, she didn't have time to think much more about Steve's thoughts before he made them known.

Natasha had been watching Steve too closely, been too aware of his smallest emotional ques that she had missed Tony.

"Tony?" Steve asked simply and every pair of eyes in the room swept to the Billionaire who seemed to have been fiddling with his watch. He looked up, nodded to Steve.

"We're set Cap."

Steve nodded and spoke clearly, addressing the room.

"We've shut out the team of puppets in there, they won't know their signal is down for a while. We need to talk, as a team. We need to sort this out, and we don't have long to do it."

At the words of the ex-soldier, everyone gathered around the small coffee table, some sitting on couches, other's leaning on the arms of chairs. Clint crouched on the floor, the position he seemed happiest although his expression was still one of internal turmoil. Bruce offered a space on the sofa to her but she shook her head. She wasn't about to sit down on principle, even if the weird feeling in her stomach was becoming annoying. It almost felt like her insides were flipping about and it was very strange.

Cap sat in a chair at the far end, everyone facing him. Everyone, Natasha knew, waiting for him to speak, to tell them what to do and how to do it. Instead, he looked down into the palms of his hands. The silence was thick and sticky, impossible to shift for a while.

"So when were you going to tell us, huh? When you got too big to get in your suit? Or were you just waiting till you went into labour on a mission? Carrying a newborn in a duffle bag?"

Tony was the first to speak. He was doing the 'I'm pretending to be in charge even though I don't have a clue what to do' voice. The voice Natasha associated with stress, with frustration and with the clever guys not knowing the way out. The problem was they were too moral. She had a code, a strict code, and she stuck to that no matter who or what was involved.

"That's not fair Tony," Clint spoke but his voice had grown quiet. He stood, paced to the far end of the living space and stared down into the tower below.

Tony glanced about, looking for someone else to speak, someone either to back him up or shoot him down. He believed in his words, but the anger behind them wasn't true anger; it was fear.

"Natasha," Steve spoke, looking up from his palms at long last,

"When did you know?"

Steve looked at her with the look of a friend, an authoritative friend but someone who undoubtedly cared for her.

"A few weeks ago, a month or so. I found out after the GSW. I didn't know from the beginning - I had no reason to suspect."

Bruce lifted his palm like an elementary school kid asking for permission to speak.

"She's right. Tony, you know that radiation poisoning destroys fertility, it annihilates every last sperm cell. That amount of poisoning, a pregnancy should never have been viable."

Tony smirked,

"Come on Doctor Banner, you have enough PHD's, seven? Is it Seven? Then you know that mutations happen, miracles happen, look at Hiroshima, look at the mutant wolves surviving there, Natasha is enhanced and you-you are impossible."

Steve cut him off.

"Right now I don't care how it happened, I don't care what miracle came from where. Romanoff is pregnant, the government want this impossible child to become a lab rat." He paused once more, glancing over at Clint.

"Natasha, what do you want us to do?"

She was surprised, to say the least, never having expected the complete following of the man out of time and yet here he was, defending her rights to her own body. The rights any other citizen of the world should have in this day and age.

Natasha took a moment to answer. She hadn't been ready for support and before she could think of what she really wanted from the team she was interupted from her thoughts once more by Steve.

"Your the closest thing most of us have to family, you should get the same choice every other woman in th US has. You have the right to do what you want to your body. As much as I believe Dr Banner should have some imput on this matter I know it's down to you Nat. And we're with you."

Tony bit his lip, thinking.

"Why don't we try and appease them?"

Bruce furrowed his eyebrows but the look on the face of both the scientists showed promise.

"appease them how?" Bruce asked instantly as Tony began to nod his head, agreeing with the thoughts as they came to him.

"We need Data. We need tests. If we can create a model genome of that kid in there then we can prove either way. One way we show this kid would be turning green during a two-year-old tantrum and would be a threat, or we prove it's totally normal and it doesn't matter what Natasha does. If we can get an amniocentesis then we're on track to ending this."

Bruce was now also nodding slowly, agreeing with Tony's thoughts. Natasha could see the sparkle in his eyes as he ticked the boxes in his mind.

"Natasha?" Steve asked, awaiting the final verdict to the only plan they had.

"I'm in."


	11. Chapter 11

"Right then, Doc, let's get it over with."

Natasha lay back on the examination table in the medical room which Tony had added to the Tower not so long ago. Bruce was to do the amniocentesis. The officials, fat cats, men at the top or whatever they wanted to be called, had some form of trust in Dr Banner. Those guys at the top had decided to allow the testing, claiming they were interested in the health of the fetus when Natasha was sure their interest was only in finding proof of radioactive blood.

Bruce seemed both distracted and nervous, his behaviour reminded her of when they had first met back in India. She wished she could go back there and undo this mistake leaching in her body but Natasha knew better than most that the past is back there and there's not a damn thing you can do to change it. The sooner they had a case, the sooner they could prove this thing had nothing special about it then the sooner she could get rid of it. Days were closing in, the New York termination laws allowed her four weeks from that point. Just four weeks.

She knew that official anything took three times as long as it should. It had taken nearly a month for the Doctor to be cleared to do the amnio in the Tower and to get all the necessary equipment and emergency drugs on hand. She had lost time already. She knew that the testing Bruce was going to perform on the amniotic fluid would take a few more days, then how much longer until World security changed their minds? Would she have to wait for a clinic appointment, was Bruce allowed to perform abortions, and, if so, would he be able to abort his own kid?

The exam table seemed to be surrounded by equipment. On one side of her was the Ultrasound scanner, Bruce would need it to make sure he didn't stab the thing at any point during the procedure. Then there was a tray covered with sterile paper and underneath would be the long-needled syringe needed to collect the fluid and most likely some sort of anaesthetic.

Bruce hadn't spoken to her since entering the room. He was busying himself by prepping his hands by the sink and the moment he spoke Natasha knew he was going to stay totally professional if he could help it. She felt horrible, guilty, she knew this was all wrong and that some parts of this were a dream come true for Bruce. She also knew some of it could be a nightmare come to life just as easily. This was why they had to know, one way or another if she was carrying a killer.

"Have you been having any unusual symptoms? Any new symptoms I should know about before the procedure."

"Yeah, I've had this weird increase in weight, it's rapid and like, not sure what's causing it..." Before she had reached the end of her sentence Natasha already knew the joke was having no effect on the Doctor who looked as though he might cry or throw up.

Bruce lifted her top and edged paper towel into the waist of her leggings without speaking. He squirted the clear jelly onto her stomach and, checking the machine was on, reached for the doppler. His eyes settled on her stomach for a moment before he placed the probe. He could see it, she knew he could see that the sheets of muscle on her body seemed to be softening, dispersing and making way for her perfectly smooth and rounded stomach. Something she never wanted to think too much about.

She didn't want to hate this thing, but what could she do? She had no choice but to ignore it and wait for it to go away. She wished that Bruce would do the same but that wasn't who he was. She wouldn't see him as such a unique man if he was.

Bruce placed the doppler and almost instantaneously sound flooded from the machine beside him. He smiled for a second before peeling the expression from his face and turning again to being unfeeling and professional.

"Strong heartbeat."

"Sounds like a washing machine to me."

Bruce shook his head,

"No...," he paused and again the smile returned, this time it lasted for a second longer before it sadly left.

"He, he is looking really good. Meeting his anti-natal milestones and looks a good weight..."

He turned this time to look at Natasha and she felt the guilt thicken inside her. She could see the need to be happy in his microexpressions, see that he wanted to be the very proud Father of a one in a million baby boy but he knew he shouldn't, he knew it wasn't worth the pain to love something for a moment when it would be gone the next.

"Are you ready for the local anaesthetic?" Natasha nodded and the doctor murmered as he flicked the air from a uncapped needle before carefull inserting the tip into her stomach.

"This will numb the pain in your abdomen, the local has a bit of a nip to it but once it's in you won't feel a thing."

"Other than that I look like a Thanksgiving turkey with that giant thing sticking out of me?" Natasha asked, pointing to the syringe.

Bruce smiled,

"I don't know how you can make jokes when getting pricked with a needle, most people find this the hard bit."

"What can I say? I'm used to little pricks," She winked and Bruce laughed.

"I hope that wasn't topical to the situation."

"I don't think I want to give an analysis when you are holding a big needle and have a habit of turning green and angry."

He nodded,

"Smart move."

Silence fell as bruce inserted the large syringe. He was concentrating closely and Natasha stayed quiet until she saw the clear fluid drawn into the barrel of the syringe. Bruce withdrew the needle and quickly transferred the fluid into a sterile container.

"Done," Bruce breathed.

"Now I will evaluate the cells and try to replicate the genome. If the genome matches my own then, well, then we are in trouble"

Natasha looked at him, she could see the sorrow in his eyes, could tell that this mess was making its mark on both of them in very different ways. He didn't want to talk, she knew they should, knew that any relationship that might have been budding between them was crumbling quickly before her very eyes.

"Bruce..," She tried but he turned from her, taking the sample in freshly gloved hands and turning from the room.

"Stay where you are, don't sit up. Don't move. I need to make sure the local is wearing off before I let you leave."


	12. Chapter 12

Hi everyone, I wondered if I could get your thoughts on this piece of writing. It is supposed to feel a bit disjointed but is it too much? Thanks for your thoughts (SFW, Avenger's fandom)

It all moved fast once she arrived at the ER. It had been a fall, she had tripped and fallen from the roof of a single story. It hadn't been much, but she was off balance, the weight of the foetus inside her meant she was front heavy and unable to land a jump she should have found easy. She wasn't supposed to leave the tower, she wasn't supposed to breath without the world knowing but she wasn't about to let her team get all the fun – especially if they had read the situation wrong.

The idiot had got away, nothing too major, just after some tech but now she was in agony, lying on a hospital bed with a swarm of doctors.

She didn't need them to confirm what was happening, she knew this was labour. Her stomach was hard and the sensation she was having could only be described as a desperate need to expel this thing from her body.

A nurse, or an OB, whatever they were, had cut her from her suit, which she had barely managed to get on an hour or so previously. The gloved hand of the woman disappeared inside her. More pain.

Natasha watched the woman's face change from neutral to grim. She removed her hand, turned to a colleague.

Natasha could have heard what the woman said but another wave of pain hit her like a brick wall. She followed the urge of her body, pushing down hard.

The nurses tried to stop her for a moment. She yelled back, only to realise she hadn't spoken in English, they had no idea that she had told them to go to hell.

Another women, the official looking women was the first to allow her to do what she had to, what her body was screaming at her to do and what would get her out of this pain.

"Natasha, I need you to push."

It burned. It burned so much she could feel tears pricking the corners of her eyes, she gripped the sheet, then the pillow, anything she could find. Mid-contraction she felt skin on hers, she gripped the hand without any hesitation.

"der'mo, der'mo! YA nenavizhu tebya, Bryus!"

There was no relief this time, the burning stayed and the pain only dipped for a moment. Only then did she tune in to the room around her enough to hear a voice she knew and be able to connect that voice to the hand.

"You're almost there Natasha, he's crowning."

Bruce.

There was no time to think about the situation, she was pushing into the stinging, fiery burn once more. She closed her eyes, gripping hard at the hand in hers. She barely heard the doctors, barely listened to the instructions. The pain was worsening, then there was a flood of fluid, so strong that she not only felt it but heard liquid splashing on the floor.

"Placenta detached in Utero, she's losing blood."

The world seemed to get quieter, she could hear Bruce's voice calling her name, but felt too tired. She was sore and could still feel some form of fluid, probably blood coming from her body. She was tired, the world was peaceful. Her hearing was gone. Then she slept.


	13. Chapter 13

Bruce

It was a warm day, the type of warm where it would get hot in the afternoon. It was warm enough for a shallow blue paddling pool to be filling in the corner of the garden. There were dragonflies going about and the birds sung all around them.

Aryo was running about with a football in shorts and t-shirt. His skin white where it had been lathered in sun cream. He burned easily due to his auburn hair which always shined in the sun. Bruce sat with his work laid out on the garden table, watching his little boy running around.

Aryo was at that stage where his little legs were still chubby but he was growing from toddler into little boy. He was active like his mother but very clever in the way Bruce supposed he would have been as a kid.

Most importantly he was ok, no sign of genetic abnormalities, no sign of the dreaded haemophilia VII which Natasha carried. He was a normal little boy.

Natasha came up behind him, She was dressed in some sort of floaty overlay and a large brimmed sunhat. Her belly touched Bruce's back, where he knew there second child was growing comfortably and healthily.

That was how he had dreamt it the moment he discovered the genome was normal. Their little boy would have been healthy, they would have left the team, set up somewhere warm and comfortable with a good school. They would have tried again, and Natasha would have had another baby, maybe two.

Bruce knew better. He knew the dream was never going to be a reality.

Their baby boy was never going to grow up, never going to run around and enjoy life the way he should have. He was stillborn, lifeless. And as fate was always cruel there was no surprise that he was born at 24 weeks and 1 day. He was just old enough that his mother couldn't abort him.

He still held the tiny, scrawny little boy in his arms. They had said he could have as much time as he needed, to say goodbye to the baby he barely knew.

Only a few evenings earlier he had been sitting with Natasha in her room, he had rubbed her belly, felt their sun wriggle around inside her. He had been happy, healthy and, most painfully, he had been normal.

Natasha's fall had ripped the placenta from the lining of the Uterus. He had been without oxygen for a while before he was born, even though her body had gone into swift labour. She lost a lot of blood, she went unconscious just after they had delivered the baby.

He had spoken to her since, asked if she wanted to see him but she refused. To Natasha this had all been a horrible mess. She was glad to have it over, to be rid of the baby within her body which she had always considered a parasite. She was ready to move on.

But he wasn't.

This proved he could be a father, and safely be a father. Maybe one day they could try again, maybe if Natasha consented to becoming Pregnant it wouldn't be such an issue for her. Maybe.

But now he held his son, dressed in a little white knitted gown which had been donated to the hospital. He was wrapped in a blanket. His eyes closed.

Perhaps the name Bruce had chosen was a bit of a joke, perhaps some would see it that way but he knew his son had been strong, had been a fighter.

Aryo Robertovich Banner. Aryo was an Indian name – reminiscent of when he had met Natasha for the first time in Calcutta - It meant warrior, or Hero; like his mother. Robertovich was to honour Natasha's Russian heritage and the patronym system where every child had the middle name from their father's first name. Which was Robert, as much as he hated to be linked to his own father, his true name was Robert.

It was all over for Aryo, his life and the fight which had gone up against his right to live and his right to die. The council, the threats and the constant surveillance would all disappear back into the woodwork. It would be as if Aryo had never happened. As if he was just an accident.


End file.
